Two pop-up cafes, Fika and Bombay, opened last summer on Pearl Street during the experimental phase of the city's pop-up program. Looks pleasant enough -- but some community activists aren't quite as enthusiastic.

This is the spot where the proposed Housing Works pop-up cafe will open. But some local residents have plenty of issues with this. (Tamara Beckwith)

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On a rainy, wind-swept day earlier this month, 61-year-old theater professor Marna Lawrence emerged from her rent-stabilized apartment on Cleveland Place armed with a stack of fliers. Despite the inclement weather, she was determined to warn her neighbors about a new threat to NoLIta: the “pop-up” restaurant.

The past few years have seen an explosion of intentionally fleeting, now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t food trends — from underground supper clubs to roving gourmet food trucks to the latest fad, known as the pop-up restaurant.

It includes exclusive dinner parties like “The Hunger” — a series of roving restaurant concepts, each with a different theme and lasting only a handful of days, where guests pay to hobnob with celebs like Padma Lakshmi.

And then there is the culinary equivalent of crashing on a friend’s couch: What Happens When, which opened in January at 25 Cleveland Place in the former space of Le Jardin Bistro, is billed as a “nine-month temporary restaurant installation.” It’s also among the most buzzy of the new pop-up breed — acclaimed chef John Fraser has garnered positive reviews in both New York magazine and the New York Times in recent weeks.

But not everybody’s digging in.

“The pop-up restaurant trend seems to me to be slickly packaged sedentary raves or street-level glass-front speakeasies — with food,” says 30-something NoLIta resident Kim Martin, who has joined forces with Lawrence. She got her first taste of community activism when she opposed Danny Meyer’s bid to open a Shake Shack at the corner of Prince and Mulberry streets last year.

“I think it’s a dangerous trend. I used to be part of that scene — [like,] ‘Oh, my God [how cool], it’s a speakeasy!’” she adds, noting she used to work in fashion.

“Now that I understand fire codes and certificates of occupancy and stuff like that, you realize, God forbid something happens . . . Are they really up to code?”

For downtown residents who have vigorously fought the spread of sidewalk cafes, rooftop lounges and other scene-ster accoutrements because of concerns over crowding and noise, the pop-up restaurant represents the latest battlefield.

“What Happens When

. . . a temporary pop-up restaurant installation suddenly opens up next door to you — or in your backyard — without first notifying the community board or reaching out to the community residents?” read Lawrence’s flier, which went on to urge neighbors to attend a public hearing for a renewal of the restaurant’s liquor license earlier this month.

She and her neighborhood allies contend that What Happens When circumvented the usual community review process by operating through a liquor-license loophole, which allows someone who buys a corporation with a liquor license issued to it to transfer the license without a community hearing.

As a result, some residents are miffed that they have no say in how the restaurant will operate its prime backyard garden — part of a large courtyard adjacent to buildings on Cleveland Place and Spring, Mulberry and Kenmare streets — in warm weather.

“They’re only here temporarily,” says Lawrence. “They don’t care about building a relationship with the community.” Adds Martin: “I am not really a radical — I love good food and new experiences — but not off the backs of residents and what seems to me like cheating the system.”

What Happens When declined to comment, but a recent letter to the community board drafted by its lawyer noted: “While they operate this unique high end restaurant, they intend to adhere to the current method of operation and will not violate any [alcoholic beverage control] laws, city codes and noise ordinances.”

But the trendy eatery is far from the only pop-up that has downtown community residents up in arms.

As part of a two-year pilot program, the NYC Department of Transportation recently green-lighted a dozen applications by Manhattan and Brooklyn eateries to build “pop-up cafes” — temporary curbside platforms built on city roadbed this spring. The cafes will be open to the public — and would ban smoking and drinking.

But opponents such as NoHo community crusader Zella Jones aren’t buying it. “Why would [a restaurant] pay $10,000 for the platform and the cost of personnel to clean and maintain its physical safety if there wasn’t a benefit?” asks Jones, claiming that some of the applicants intend to offer table service. Eight of the pop-up cafes are proposed for Greenwich Village and SoHo — but activists expect many to face staunch opposition at tomorrow night’s Community Board 2 meeting.

A big fight is already brewing. A Transportation Alternatives e-mail blast earlier this week urged pop-up supporters to attend the meeting and characterized the opposition as “an organized effort by anti-change forces to try to prevent these livable street improvements in Greenwich Village and SoHo.”

Critics of the program say that the city is giving private enterprises free right to public land — and that the Department of Transportation does not have sufficient experience policing food and entertainment venues.

But those who participated in the pilot program last year say the benefits were numerous. In a down economy, business was up by 15 percent, according to David Johansson, co-owner of Fika Espresso Bar, and Prashant Bhatt, owner of Bombay’s Indian Cuisine, both on Pearl Street, where they set up their pop-up. In a letter in support of the program, they write: “The recession caused many New York restaurants to close down — laying off employees and hurting local property values with shuttered storefronts. Pop-ups can help keep these local businesses going.

“Our street was transformed from a dark space filled with idling trucks into a lively space with tables and folding chairs, all open to the public,” they add.

But according to artist Alan Herman, 66, a longtime resident of Crosby Street, the program will seriously impede traffic flow. The nonprofit Housing Works Cafe hopes to open a pop-up cafe on Crosby Street, but Herman says the block’s already packed with private sanitation, delivery and UPS trucks at all hours.

“It’s not like we’re not fans of Housing Works — because we are,” says Herman. “[But] it’s ill-conceived for this block, which is a heavily used service block — taking up parking spaces is really not in anyone’s interest.”

And while both sides seem to agree that downtown streets are clogged with traffic, it’s their visions for a vibrant, livable city that diverge. As pop-up cafe opponents like Martin see it: “New York City streets are not a food court in a mall — as much as Bloomberg has mallified most of New York. I feel like this is the last step — ‘Now let’s create a food court!’ ”